August 31, 2010

Too Random For a Monday

Turns out that my Monday was so random that now Random Monday is actually Random Tuesday which is really random, and that has to strike someone else as funny besides me. Here's Monday's round-up, presented on a Tuesday.

1. I'm teaching and speaking at Vogue Knitting Live. Pretty excited about it, mostly because of the company I'll be keeping (I've got a serious knitter-crush on most of the other teachers) and because it's New York, and how can you not like New York, and well. It just looks nifty beyond all niftyness, and I collect yarn, which means that I know nifty when I see it. Hope you'll join me or someone else for a class if you're within striking distance, registration is open. It's in January.

2. I'm also teaching/speaking at Knit East, which is a fabulous Canadian event in New Brunswick next year, September 30 to October 2nd, 2011. Some of my favourite people again.

3. I have been knitting. I have a beautiful pair of Rogue Roses to show you, but sadly, no sock model. Better pictures of them tomorrow when I can corral one. (Experienced sock models are hard to find, especially since the size you need can vary. Should be a number we can call to get a volunteer. )

4. I got the new Commemorative Edition of the Knitters Almanac in the mail, and I'm so thrilled. The Knitters Almanac has always been a treasure to me, and I feel in Elizabeth a great kindred spirit. (I know that's odd since the knitting is really all we have in common, but knitting's like that. It erases meaningless barriers like age.) I love the new edition, and it's not just because I wrote the introduction, but won't say that I don't love that too. I'm very proud to be associated with one of my heroines this way. I've got a spare copy of this lovely book, so if you'd like a chance that I'll mail it to you, please leave a comment telling me why you would like to have it. I'll pick at random.

5. I started a beatiful new set of mittens. Last year when I was mitten cruising, I spotted these beauties La Joie du Printemps (That's a Ravelry link... Blog link for non-ravelry users is here.) and I fell head over heels for them. I've long been a fan of the fussy-fancy mitten, being a strong proponent of the idea of "dress mittens." (If you live in Canada, it doesn't take you long to get there.) Last night I cast them on, using Gauja wool (a beautiful two ply Romney fingering weight that I'm really in love with) and charged along making grand progress. This morning I got up, drank a cup of coffee and admitted to myself that the mitten was way too big. I checked gauge, and yup. 8 stitches to the inch where I should be getting 10, and I ripped the whole thing. I like this pattern too much to be not getting the right size.

6. I've restarted them. I'd insert a rant here about gauge and how silly it is and how it lies like a lying liar bad guy, but really, if you don't check gauge and then don't get gauge, that's nothing but knitter error, and I have nobody to blame but myself.

7. I hate the part of me that doesn't swatch, but really, isn't a mitten small enough to sort of be a swatch?

August 27, 2010

A Pox

I'm having one of those days, the days that I possess the reverse Midas touch. Instead of turning to gold, everything I touch turns to crap. I've fouled a spreadsheet, my mail program, spilled coffee, forgotten to move the laundry from the washer to the drier (so now everything in there smells a little like cheese and needs to be re-washed), exploded a bag of cat food (don't ask) misplaced an important paper, created a paper disaster while searching for aforementioned paper, received a book I ordered, only to realize it's not the book I meant to order, found a splash of ink in one of my best knitting bags where a cheap pen has clearly vomited on my yarn and then discovered some evidence of a mouse incursion near my flour bin.

I got two packages in the mail but they were both for Joe, my blog software crashed and took a great post with it, we're suddenly and remarkably out of any sort of useful groceries, the battery in my camera is dead and I think I left the charger in Portland, the vacuum cleaner is making an expensive noise, and I think my phlox is dead in the backyard, which is probably related to the clear evidence that one of the soaker hoses out there really hasn't been soaking anything for some time. There was a spider the size of a Honda in the bathroom, the living room is a mess, I did the math wrong on a knitting pattern and it turns out I don't have enough yarn after all, a ball of yarn fell off the winder mid wind and tangled, and I think that I kitchenered the toe of a sock shut this morning with all the skill of a drunken wombat with a crack habit and no knowledge of knitting - which really pisses me off, because you should be able to count on a skill like that, even when you're having a bit of an off day.

On the upside, I found an rotting and moldy apple core down the side of the couch, which at least explains the reek in the living room that floats over you as pungently as an elderly skunk conference every time you sit down. (It does not, however, explain why nobody else could smell that we were running an indoor compost program.)

In short, out an instinct that can only be interpreted as self defense, I am canceling the rest of Friday. If you need me, I'll be in the bath with a beer. Peace out.

August 25, 2010

A little bit of something

Back home again, weathering that odd shift from one time zone, place and job to another. It always throws me for a loop- a rapid change in expectations and pace. The first day home from a trip is almost always a complete loss. I get up at the wrong time, I'm hungry at the wrong times, and I feel oddly out of place in my own home. Joe and the girls have always come up with their own systems while I'm gone, and while I'm mostly over it (if by "over it" you understand that I mean that I spend the day turning the upside-down coffee cups in the cupboard the right way around again) it still shocks me when I get home, open the fridge and discover that we're keeping the cranberry juice on another shelf now. (Why, yes. I am resistant to change? What tipped you off?)

I find it so hard, this one day, the day I come back and start unpacking, I always feel a little like I'm in no-mans land. Some weird limbo where nothing is sorted away or home, and I do the laundry, and turn cups around, and put the cranberry juice back where we keep it, sort out the mail and find out what I missed while I was gone, and struggle with the guilt. Today it was triggered by someone who asked me, straight out, if it bothers Joe that I go away like I do, leaving him with all the work.

Begin Rant.

It's the curse of a mother I think, that if I don't earn a living I would feel guilty- but if I leave the house to do it I feel guilty. Sensing a theme? I used to think that this guilt was self imposed, that it came from within me, and that if I could stop spreading it on my own toast that it would stop being true. I did a lot of work on myself to put my guilt in the right place. I reminded myself that although I do travel a lot, I'm home a lot. When I'm not travelling I work from home, make breakfast and dinner, am here when people come home from school... participate at least as much, if not more than I would be able to if I had a 9-5 job and was out of the house every day.

Over the last year, I've realized something. It's not me. Well, more accurately, since I have some issues remaining, it's not ALL me. Society at large does still have different standards for mothers and fathers. Joe travels for work, and nobody's ever suggested to him that he not do it, or that as a father, it's inappropriate that he does. Nobody ever asks him if he feels guilty or bad about being away, and there's something to that question isn't there? If you're asked if it bothers you to be away, isn't the insinuation that it should? How about if someone says "I could never be away from my kids" doesn't that imply somehow that the fact that you do it means that you're a little dead inside?

I think a lot about the things I hear and see around me. The way that people think Joe's an absolute rock star for managing the family while I'm away, but have never complimented me on my ability to manage that same family without him... The way that people tell me that their husband/friend/father is fantastic because he "helps with the kids so much" or is great about helping them with the housework. (Implication being, of course, that childcare and housework belongs to the female partner, and that the male's just a peach for assisting.) I hear my friends and neighbours talk about how great it is that their male partner is "going to try to do more"... and just a few weeks ago I heard a father I know say that he couldn't go out for a beer because he had to "babysit." (You can imagine my shock when it turned out that he hadn't taken a wee job to pick up some extra cash providing caregiving... but was in fact referring to HIS OWN CHILDREN. His wife was going out and he was staying in. Apparently that's babysitting, not parenting. Feel free to imagine my reaction.)

In any case, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, except to say that it annoys me a bit. My absences seem to be constantly viewed with skepticism, and weighed in the cosmic balance sheet of whether or not I'm a good mum, with no apparent points granted for having been a stay-at-home parent for years and years and years, or no credit given for the choices I made about how much money this family would have when the girls were little so that they would have a full time parent instead. My girls are big, I've waited a long time to have a career, and I have an excellent spouse who has loads of absences himself, including wicked long hours worked when I am home to spell him. We both work hard. We're both good parents, our children are pretty grown up, and our system is pretty equal, all things considered - so why is the public view so often that he's rocking it out, and I'm self serving - or more properly, why is it so much easier to be a dad than a mum, or a man in the workforce than a woman? Why do people still go into a home and decide, if there just so happens to be roaming dust bison or a mystery smell emanating from the fridge, that the adult family member who doesn't have a penis might want to get it together? Why- in my whole life have I never seen anyone walk into a messy home and decide in their hearts that maybe the husband needs to keep the sink a little shinier, rather than passing judgment on the wife?

These are old arguments, and old complaints, and really I'm not sure why I'm still bothered by it. You'd think that at this point in my life I'd be used to people frowning when dads do their fair share while mums do theirs, but apparently I'm not quite over it. You'd think I'd have accepted by now that the way we view mums and dads is essentially skewed.

I guess my point is that it's a bad day to tell me that your husband is going to babysit your own children, or that he's pretty good about helping with the housework, or that mums who sacrificed at least a decade of career to raise children and are now working their bums off to provide the bulk of their families income while being a parent and doing a whole lot of laundry still aren't doing enough to get the credit a dad gets just for breathing right.

To answer the original question, do I think it bothers Joe that I go away and leave him with all the work? No. I think he's grateful, and that he think things are even, and that he and I and I are modelling for our daughters the way things can go in a family if people accept that dads are worth as much as mums (and the other way around) and that I'm as responsible for this families bottom line as Joe is the sink and kids orthodontist appointments. Do we wish that was possible without anybody travelling for anything? Yup- but we're all here when it matters, and we're a team.

August 23, 2010

One Orange to Unite Them All

It is not, as I have explained to Joe a million times, that I am picky. I am not picky. I am precise. I like things done the right way (and it is totally a co-incidence how often that correlates to my way) and I like to give things a lot of thought before they happen to make sure that things do mostly work out and I minimize uncomfortable surprises.

This makes knitting pretty much the perfect hobby for me, since there's nobody to tell me that I can't have it my way the right way all the time, and pretty much no limit to the number of times that I can rip things back and mess with them to satisfy my own set of peculiar standards, and it makes me just about the worst person in the world to be whacking dye on things.. because it's so hard to plan and I know nothing about it and I don't understand how it works and all of that would be bad enough - but add in that dye is permanent and you get someone (that would be me) who's really reluctant to dye yarn- lest I get a mess that I can't fix. This is bad enough with regular yarn, but with handspun? I would be less likely to take up emu plucking as a hobby than dye handspun.

Now my friend Tina, she's not afraid of dyeing anything- and if you're as dye repressed as I am, I would bet you $5 that the amount of abandon she has around this topic would be as disconcerting for you as it was for me. Tina dyes like nothing bad can happen. She dyes like yarn won't be ruined if you make a mistake, she dyes like there's no limit to the amount of dye and yarn there is in the world... she's just not worried about it at all - and this makes us an unlikely dye team. I stand behind her and say "Are you sure you want to put that much dye on?" or "That seems like a lot" or "Why not one skein instead of two" or "Can't we just dip a corner in?"

When Tina hears this, she just smiles and says something subtle like "Me dyer. You writer. Shut up." I do. Mostly.

This weekend, Tina and I spent a good long time trying to dye my handspun. I had a specific orange in mind that I wanted, and Tina was determined to help me find it. We started by looking at other oranges (oranges inferior to the one in my mind) and critiquing them. When Tina had an idea what I wanted, she started testing. My job? Be picky precise. We spent hours. We had conversations like this.

Me: Tina, that's not right. Tina: Not right how? Me: It's too blue. The orange is too blue. Tina: Right. The orange is too blue - so more red? Me: No. It needs to be dirtier. Tina: Dirtier? Like this? Me: No. Like that. That over there. That bush has almost the right colour of orange flowers except for they are too rosy. Tina:Too rosy? Me: Too rosy. And it should be fiercer. Tina: Fiercer... like that? Me: No. Now it's an angry fierce. It should by cozy. Tina: Cosy like brown or cozy like red? Me: Cosy like brown. But less pink. Not a pink brown. Tina: Of course not. That would be ridiculous. Me: Exactly, and it shouldn't have cool yellow. Warm yellow. Tina: Just warm, or warm and dirty? Me: Warm and dirty. Tina: Awesome. Like this? Does it need to be cozy, warm and dirty or are we done with cozy. Me: Oh no. Still cozy. Tina: Naturally. Let's do another skein. On and on it went, with Tina making notes and mixing dyes and me describing (poetically) the sort of orange that I wanted and the general mood of the colour. (Again, I point out that I am not picky, it is just that I care a great deal. I'm misunderstood as an artist.) We went on and on and Tina... well. She seemed to be having a lot of fun, which is interesting, because it's sort of the opposite way that Joe seems to feel about the version of this that you play when you have to choose a colour for the kitchen paint job.

We knew we had it when we pulled out a test skein that had both of us gasping.Perfect. Absolutely perfect. We duplicated it on another skein.... just to make sure it was repeatable...and then my handspun had its turn. Look! Perfect orange. Just perfect.

I still don't know what I'm going to make out of it.. but the pleasures of a deeply personal orange can't be underestimated.I love this colour, and I think Tina must too, because in the last 12 hours- She's put it on everything.

August 20, 2010

Balanced

The universe seeks balance. I say that all the time, and over and over it's proven to me. Here I am, just days after a sock practically knit itself in a day, and all I have to show for myself is almost nothing of the next one.

This sock and I don't knit with each other, we just go to meetings. Since I'm only here for a week (which is really 5 days, if you count a day for travel each way) Tina and I booked meetings with all of the Sock Summit 2011 contacts while I'm here. All of them. This sock has been to meetings at the convention centre - we were there two days in a row, it's been to meetings with the people who provide all the tables and drapes and chairs for the marketplace, it's had a conversation about switching all our signs from foam core (can't recycle) to new neat cardboard stuff that we can.... it's discussed what rooms to have where, been with Tina and I while we scribble on little maps of big rooms, and it was there when we talked about how many teachers and vendors we can have, and today it's going to the graphics people, the bank, the accountant and the database people. It's a big list. This part of planning SS11 is super intense and weird. Tina and I both feel like making decisions now for how things will roll out a year from now is both bizarre and scary. When we're not in meetings, we're either buying bristol board, sharpies and post-its, or we're using them. It's also though, if you can get past the part where you're a little bogged down with decisions about chairs and contracts about signs - the coolest part. This is the part where we dream, where we think about what could happen, how to make it happen, and we wonder what we could try... If you're just making a plan, your plan could be anything... right? You could have any kind of Sock Conference you want. There's a whole lot going on- just not a lot of sock knitting and my little sock goes to meeting after meeting, where it sits sadly on the table with Tina's sock, and they consider the irony.

August 18, 2010

It's a bird, it's a plane

Monogamy (just within knitting) isn't my strong suit. (I'm fine with all other areas.) I don't think I'm really that fickle, it's more that I knit all the time and if you're going to knit all the time, then you've got to have your project type keyed to your activity. I'm a pretty solid knitter, but even if I were capable of it, I'm not going to be juggling a chart and three balls of yarn when I'm on the bus. That's been the only down side of the self-imposed sock club, is that they're all patterned socks, and none of them are really great for when you can't be looking at your knitting - so I've been running extra pairs of socks in the background. The first sock of this set took forever. Really I was interested in the sock of the month, and so it languished but for moments where I needed something simple. Yesterday morning I was leaving for Portland, about to spend the better part of the day travelling, and I needed something good for the plane. I snagged the sock, leaving the house yesterday at about 10am just starting the toe of the first sock. By the time I was in the air I was grafting the toe shut and starting the second, and then- out of nowhere, things got shocking.

Shocking how? Shocking as in "Holy cow I just knit a whole sock in a day without ever really trying or cheating by making ankle socks." I was past the halfway point by Vancouver, and then just about done by Portland, and I didn't even knit last night after I arrived. Didn't knit in the car, didn't knit in the evening...Whammo. Socks. I'd say that the yarn might be fast, but the first sock took a while, so that's not it. Yarn: Zauberball Starke 6, 2.5mm needles. Pattern: My plain vanilla sock pattern from Knitting Rules , with two of the ribs from the cuff extended through.

What it must be is that I was just super knitter for an afternoon, or accidentally warped the time space continuum, or spent an afternoon with Dr. Who (who has conveniently wiped my memory of the experience, but returned me to my same timeline so I never knew I was gone) or - maybe I was kidnapped by aliens! (No, then I'd be missing time, not going faster... ) Maybe it's just the planet catching up and balancing out all of those times that I knit for hours and got nowhere... the scales finally tipped in my favour and here we are. A sock in an afternoon. The cosmic payback I deserve all come home to roost, ironically when I care least- since if there was a knitting goddess who knew and loved me, she'd be giving me this gift on December 23rd. Just saying.In any case, for whatever reason, by whatever magic. A sock in an afternoon. If only it was repeatable.

PS. This yarn makes socks that are seriously fraternal rather than identical. Seriously made me nuts.

August 17, 2010

This Thing Is Working Out

I have had a lot of good ideas. Good ideas like "Find your own food Fridays" or "Make your own Fun Mondays", good ideas like the boccancini-tomato pasta thing. (Someday I'll make it for you. It's stupid good.) Oh sure, I've had some bad ideas too... trying to save money by fixing my own toilet was revealed as being a few diapers short of a layette about three hours into it. (My principle error was realizing too late that people with one bathroom really can't have it disassembled for a long time while they're figuring it out, you know?) In any case, the bird thing was stupid too, and I don't even want to talk about the thing with the parking. Not good ideas, but every once in a while one of my ideas really is good. That's the case with the Self-Imposed Sock Club. Here it is, the 17th of August - not even close to the end of the month, and here's the socks for this month. Done and ready to join their chums in the box upstairs - where there are actually now eight pairs of finished socks, one for every month so far. Pattern: Cotty. Nice, quick, fun pattern, really easy to memorize. Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Skinnamarink.In January I matched up 12 patterns I really wanted to get around to with 12 yarns I really wanted to get around to, rammed one set per month into ziplocks and shoved them onto the top shelf of my downstairs stash closet. Every month since then I've been drawing one at random, and I can't believe how much fun it is. I don't know what I'm getting, I'm trying all sorts of things I was looking forward to, and I'm knitting tons of socks that really would have ended up being plain socks because I sometimes have so much trouble deciding on a pattern that I end up doing plain ones just because I can't make up my mind. This has been a blast, and I feel like I'm really churning out the knitwear and I'm getting other pairs in too- since when I finish ahead of schedule, like this month, I've got almost two weeks now to work on another pair.

This was a way better idea than the thing with the leak, the duct tape and all the tin foil.

August 16, 2010

Random Monday

I'm starting to really feel the love for this Random Monday thing. Here it is, the beginning of a busy week and I don't even have to pretend to have any sort of a cohesive structure to a blog post- which is a relief, because I don't think any was forthcoming anyway. So here we go.

1. I'm packing. I hate packing. I wish you could just type the location and event you were going to into a computer on the side of your suitcase, and it would just walk around the house putting everything you would need in it.

2. I'm going to Portland because it's just about a year until the next Sock Summit, and that means that Tina and I have to start the endless string of meetings and in-person organizing that has to happen so the thing flies.

3. I have bought new post-it notes to make sure it goes well. I suspect Tina has too.

4. I finished spinning the latest obsession. Four skeins of yarn that are now ready to be dyed - all to match. 5. I still have no idea what I'm going to make out of them, but I'm starting to think that the woven scarf experiment might have triggered this, and maybe I'm supposed to make another woven scarf. 6. I guess this is another trip where I try to put a loom in my suitcase.

7. My loom is pretty little, so I don't mind doing that, except for that moment at security when I have to explain what it is and why I have it with me. I can tell by their faces that I'm yet to find a way to do it that sounds sane by their standards.

8. Their standards are weird.

9. Megan turned 19 yesterday. That means that now I'm the mother of another person who is old enough to do everything there is to do in Canada, from driving to voting to drinking- and to do it without my permission.

10. I'm still working on how I feel about her being able to yell "You're not the boss of me" and have an actual point. I bought champagne for her anyway.

August 13, 2010

Half Baked

I've been drifting along in my knitting, working on my socks while I wait for the next big thing to come along. There's always something. I see something, think of something, have an idea about something, and this time was no exception. The muse turned up last week when I was poking through the fibre collection looking for, well. Something, and I happened upon two big bags of processed fibre that's fall out from an episode I had while with Denny at the Royal Winter Fair last year. (Hint. If you think you have enough fibre, don't go anywhere with Denny.) There's a big bag of a lovely grey/brown wool, and an equally large bag of creamy wool of the same ilk, and I had an idea. (Well, first I had another idea, to spin enough wool for a sweater and take it with me to Portland next week and force ask Tina if she would help me dye it, but really, I leave Tuesday and I must have been hit with a common sense stick because I realized almost straight away that I was being a lunatic.)

What if I spun three bobbins of each brown and white, and then combined them as a three ply in a graduated manner. The first skein would be three plies of brown. The second skein two plies of brown and one of cream, the third skein two plies of cream and one of brown, and the fourth skein would be the opposite of the first. Simply three plies of cream. What then, if I took that yarn to Tina and got her help dying it all one colour? Would that be cool?

The voice in my head thinks it would be. Mind you, the voice in my head also thinks that books and yarn should be free and that cheese should make you skinny, so who knows if it's to be trusted. I've started already, and come Monday I should have all four skeins to show you. At the end of this little enterprise I will have 4 skeins of a three-ply light worsted yarn... each about 100 metres, all dyed to match, each lighter than the last. I think that when I knit that up into...

Well. There's the half-baked part. No idea what I would knit it up into. None. I have this crazy obsession with bringing this yarn into being, and no idea what I'll do with it when it gets here. I've decided not to worry about it, since I'm helpless in its grip anyway, and leave the ideas to you. One of you, I don't know which, has just the thing in mind... .don't you? 400m worsted, graduated colour. Go.

In the meantime, I leave you with this, thoughtfully emailed to me by Catherine M, who thought I would love it. She was right.

I am a knitter, however not one who had the time to knit all off the sweaters I like to wear during the rather long rainy/cold season that lasts from October to June in Portland, Oregon. This means that I am also a Goodwill shopper, constantly looking for wool sweaters. Naturally, I always check the fiber content, but I had never seen a label quite so...amazing as the one I came across last week.

Not only is this sweater 100% "Virgin Acrylic," is proudly states the fact in gold metallic.

And really... that left me speechless. I suppose it's technically true, since it's unlikely the acrylics are not virgin (in either the textile or literal sense) but still. It raises questions about all the other acrylic sweaters and yarn we've ever seen that was NOT labelled as virgin, doesn't it?

August 11, 2010

Where I Wish

The issue with taking these concentrated mini-vacations... like the 18 hours I just had at the cottage with the girls before I left them with their grandmother, is that it makes me feel like I've got to cram in as much fun as can possibly be had that wee time. (The first Cotty sock, reclining on the reading log at the beach.)

I definitely had it too. My nephew Hank and I looked at rocks and admired the pyrite sparkling in the water at the beach. I read on the beach, we ran races on the sand. (All of us, even though we're mostly all grown up. Some family traditions are oddly sticky. Also, my sister is surprisingly fast.)

I swam and swam, all the way out to the big rock with Sam. (As one would expect of a sailor, she can swim like a fish.)

It was wonderful, and all to fast. I sat on the rock at the empty beach watching Samantha and Hank play dolphin (I thought 16 might be to old to play dolphin. I was wrong) and I started my second sock, and tried to figure out how to stay longer. I left the girls there, to play and swim, and drove back to Toronto to work, with nothing but a nasty sunburn to show for it. (Yes, I was diligent with the sunscreen. It's just a side effect of trying to enjoy the beach while you can be at it. I tried to avoid it, I got it anyway, I think it was worth it.) Now I'm here, and I wish I was there.

I'm not good at playing dolphin, but I'm pretty wicked at crocodile, and as Megan said "If you don't know what those games are, you're not doing the beach right."

August 9, 2010

Mayhem Monday

Which is really just another way of saying that there's a random list headed your way, right about... now.

1. Sam returned from her sail training on Saturday. Having spent 8 days on a tall ship, she was dirty, smelly, exhausted, happy, strong and certified as a Lead Hand. (I think that is one of the coolest things ever. ) This means that she and Joe have conversations all weekend with words in them that makes them sound like pirates. Words like "abaft" (means behind you) and "Jib Topsail" (which is actually prounounced "jib topsell" just like the main sail is the mainsell.) 2. She came home with pretty fancy biceps, because every time a trainee uses the wrong words for parts of the boat (as in "Your vest is behind you" instead of "your vest is abaft you") it was 10 pushups. Oddly, despite an overdeveloped sense of justice when it comes to her parents, when this was coming from the Captain, Sam thought it was fair.

3. I am not crazy enough to think this technique (nor dumping her out of a bunk for being late to watch) will be effective at home.

4. Of the whole crew, the only person on the brigantine who was over 18 was the Captain.

5. I can't believe what teens can do if they're given the trust, respect, responsibility and opportunity.

6. It really makes it a mystery that the same kid who can climb the rigging, furl a mainsail, tack into the wind with the boat heeled at 90 degrees, name all 68 lines on the boat and tell you their location and purpose ---- still hasn't managed to nail putting dishes in (NOT ON) the dishwasher. Bizarre.

7. We leave again today because Amanda and Sam are going to spent time with their grandmother at the cottage she's rented.

8. This means I have to drive the two of them up there. I hate driving. I worry about it. I've never had an accident and I'm a good driver, but I don't like knowing that I could totally kill everyone with one mistake, or worse - that I could kill everyone because I fail to see someone else's mistake coming. This is about a three hour drive and I just hate every moment of it. It makes me sweaty just thinking about it.

9. Megan's up there now, so I'll arrive there at supper, drop off two of my girls, sleep the night and then load the third girl into the car and repeat the journey in reverse tomorrow, since she has to be back for work.

10. That sucks.

11. I'm almost done a sock though. Too bad you can't knit while driving. Might be part of why I hate it.

12. I can't believe none of my daughters have a drivers licence. It's the subway. They have no motivation.

August 6, 2010

One Year

It's crazy you know, I didn't forget what today was, I just wasn't sure to say about it, and then Tina blogged about it, and Debbi sent me a twitter about it, and then RachelH was all sentimental about it, and so. Well.

One year ago today, Sock Summit was being held for the first time, and by this time of day I was surveying all that we had wrought and all I could think was that it was so cool, and so magnificent, and really, probably a huge mistake. (Turns out that I didn't know what we could do until we'd done it. I think the fear kept us on our toes.) It was a big undertaking, and it was three days and a convention centre full of really, some of the coolest people I've ever met, and by suppertime people like Barbara Walker and Meg Swansen and Anna Zilboorg were calling me by my first name like we KNEW EACH OTHER and I kept waiting to wake up, or for the whole thing to implode. It didn't though, and one year later it's still one of the most important and interesting things I've ever done, and it wasn't just the impact it had on my resume, it was the impact it had on my life. I made friends during that time that are dearer to me than I can say. I walked among my people. I learned stuff about Tina (my god, that woman is made of tough stuff) I learned stuff about myself (not sure what, but I think it's mostly good) and I learned things about my friends, family and colleagues that's made me six kinds of proud to know them.

What a great time it was. When I remember how completely terrified I was at the beginning, and how completely exhausted at the end... Frankly, I can't believe it's only a year until we do it all again.

The next one will be different, for sure, I mean there's nothing like your first time, but sincerely - I know it will be it's own kind of magic...and I can't wait.

Happy Anniversary Tina. I still can't believe that the post-it note system paid off.

August 4, 2010

Snow

It never really cooled off last night, the blazing day star that sucks the life out of you when it's hot like this went down, but the humidity stayed, and our old house had sucked up the heat and held onto it like it was expensive and precious. "How ironic" is what I was thinking this morning, as the first edges of the intense heat started to come into our bedroom. In the winter we can't get this drafty old place to hold onto warmth at all, but in August we've got no trouble. It was warmer in our house last night than it was outside, and upstairs it was downright despicable. Sam's away crewing on a tall ship, a trip that demanded that she bring two pairs of long underwear and a touque, and Megan's taken to arranging a parade of sleep-overs with friends who have air-conditioning, and as Joe and I sweat our way through another 40 degree day (that's 104F, for our friends in the south) we find ourselves jealous of both of them.

Crazy then, that my second thought this morning was about winter. I was probably trying to provoke some cool thoughts when it occurred to me, but the truth is that as brutally hot as a Toronto summer is, it is short. Really, if you add up all the weeks, from Victoria Day at the end of May (the unofficial start of summer) to Labour Day on September 6th (the unofficial end of summer) you've only got about 15 weeks. Take away June (because really, you should. It's not going to be hot) and if you're a summer loving heat seeker like me, you've got a potential for 11 weeks of proper, steamy, hot summer. Summer for swimming, biking, reading on the beach... 11 Saturdays out of 52 to sit on a patio in a sundress. 11 Saturdays. This being the reality, I try not to complain about the summer. No matter when you're thinking it's too hot, it won't be hot for long, and then there will be the unreasonable winter upon us again. This would be the reason that Joe and I can't seem to fork out the cash for central air. When it's like this we think about it, and then we remember that it's an investment that's only going to be useful for a few days a year, and we get over it. This summer's been an exception, when we've had a record breaking number of days of extreme heat- and really, now that we're almost broken down it seems stupid to get it when there's only 4 weeks left. We just keep reminding ourselves that people live, love and work in Bangladesh without air conditioning. We tell ourselves that while sitting in a bathtub full of cool water, but that's what we're holding onto.

All this said, it makes perfect sense that the next thing that I did was start a scarf. As hot as it is now, the snow is coming, and when it does, I'll be wanting a warm, woolly scarf to wrap against the fierce wind and snow. Yarn is one ball of BMFA Labrador (I think the current incarnation of this is ThickieThin), and one ball of Silk Loops, both in the ST-1 colourway. I'm working them one row of each in garter stitch. To make it work I'm using a short circular. I knit across one row with the first yarn, then knit across with the second. Then I slide the work to the other end of the circular needle so that I have the first yarn at the start position, then purl across. At the end of that row it's another slide, then purl across with the second yarn. Keep repeating those four rows and you have one row stripes in garter stitch. I know winter is coming, I even know it's soon, and I know that those truths mean that making a scarf is way, way more sensible that trudging on a tank top I'm going to finish just in time for the snow, but it really doesn't stop me from feeling a little stupid, and maybe a little sad, knitting on this while I'm sweating. I'm not alone either. This morning I told a friend I was making a scarf, and they laughed for five minutes. "It's 40 degrees!" they said. "I know"I said, "I know it seems ridiculous, but..." And with that... the conversation trailed off, as we both looked out the window at our gardens roasting in the heat, listened to kids cooling off in backyarn kiddie pools while the cicadas sang about the heat, and we contemplated going off to sit naked in bathtubs full of ice cubes. Neither of us wanted to talk about the possibility of winter coming. There are 4 weeks left of summer, and as hot as it is, we want all of them. It might just be too soon - from an emotional perspective (not a knitterly one) to talk about warm wool scarves and snow.

August 3, 2010

The Opposite

Being a self employed person has a downside, namely that my boss is a huge bitch... and being a writer has a few downsides of its own. (Let's not get into that today.) That said, there's a few perks that make up for all of it.

I might not get a paid vacation, but I am a very good little writer, meet my word count for the day, and do all that I should before 4pm, then there's absolutely nobody to stop me from knocking off early and taking a sock, a book and a beer to the backyard, where I can plunk myself under my umbrella and wait for a little breeze to take the edge of a scorcher of a day. (41 degrees. Toronto is not fooling around.) August self imposed sock club sock of the month is Cotty (by Irishgirlieknits) and I'm knitting it from Madelinetosh Tosh Sock in Skinnamarink. It's pretty nice out here, but don't tell my boss. I don't want to spoil the moment by having to buy that wingnut a beer.

August 2, 2010

The trip to Montréal was

The trip to Montréal was a smashing success and I'm not just saying that because I got my kid back and I finished a pair of socks, although both are true. Besides that, I spent a lovely time with my husband, just the two of us, and we actually had some of those... er, what do you call them? Damn its been so long. What's that word? Oh right. CONVERSATIONS. I had some conversations with my husband. We've both been working so much lately that our communications had sort of been reduced to the essentials. We talk about bread, money, toilet paper (and the lack thereof) and the girls. We ask each other to do things (go to the bank, water the garden, pay a bill, find the cat) but we haven't had a ton of time for just enjoying each other and talking about ... well. Whatever we wanted. We saw some wonderful things, walked a million km, went to La basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal - Walked by the river...watched the locks work,We drank wine in vieux Montréal and stayed in a hotel. We had a wonderful mini-holiday, and I even remembered a lot of the stuff I really like about Joe. (Not that I'd forgotten, I just hadn't really had time to keep it in mind.) It was grand, but I suspect you care more about Megan and the socks, so - Megan and team knit rolled into Montréal on Friday afternoon, all three hundred riders pouring up the street with a police escort, no less.

Unlike last year, when it really seemed like they were all so stunned at what they'd done, this year they were absolutely celebratory. Joe and I have always thought that doing hard things really changes kids, really gives them confidence to try to be exceptional people, and this year you could see it on them. Ken was about the same (he was exceptional to begin with) but Pato and Meg were absolutely more confident and grown up than last year. (Again, Ken's already a grownup. Not that we don't think he gets better every year, because he really does.)

There was legal beer drinking (Pato and Megan won't be of age in Ontario for a few more weeks, but they're of age in Quebec) There was hugging: There was hoisting bikes and metaphoric chest beating. Julie was too tired to hoist her bike by herself. Joe helped her. Pato showed off his wicked tan lines-and Joe and I laughed and laughed, not just because these people are really, really fine people and it does the world good to know that there are 300 people willing to look out for their fellow human this way, but also that we know three of them so well- and that means we're having a pretty good life, you know? We're proud to death of the lot of them, Pato and Meg for being so young and so brave and decent, and Ken for enabling them to find this out about themselves and ride with them all the way. Pretty outstanding.

Also outstanding is the extra pair of socks completed this month - though as pretty as they are they don't hold a candle to Team Knit. These are Flabella, the January RSC pattern designed by Christina Bain - in the actual yarn that came with the club. (I know. It's stunning that I totally went along with the whole thing.) The colour is "Happy go Lucky" and I don't think the pattern or yarn is for sale until this coming January. (Exclusive sock club thing.) While I'm usually pretty fiercely anti-bobble, these ones are somehow charming.